★½
“Falls far, far short of reaching moderate”
Oh, dear. Where to start? Let’s get the positives out of the way. This looks reasonable enough, and clearly was not a poverty-row production. The central idea isn’t bad either: while a vigilante killer taking out misogynistic online sexists is a fairly ludicrous concept, if you squint a bit, you can see how it could have become an acerbic comment on the toxicity of social media. And that’s all I’ve got. For any potential is ruthlessly exterminated by staggeringly feeble execution. We’re there inside two minutes, when an unnamed Russian supermodel wakes, to get a video message from two pals vacationing in Morocco, then turns on the TV immediately to see a news report about them being executed by ISIS, with the video online for all to see. Wait, what?
Ms. Supermodel then visits a shadowy character who gives her a small rucksack telling her it contains everything she needs, including her new identity as “Mya Snik”. This is only the second-dumbest name, because later on we hear of somebody called, I kid you not, Dr. Akula. No, really. The rucksack also contains a scorpion, for no reason ever made clear. Mya then heads off on a somewhat ruthless pursuit of random Internet trolls, leading up to serial rapist and shitty white rapper, Vance Wilhorn (Lane), who is in Morocco too, abusing any young woman stupid enough to hang out with him. And we are talking very, very stupid, as shown by this stunningly terrible piece of dialogue:
“Do you want to get raped or what?”
“Oh, come on – don’t start that again…”
Once more, this might all have been tolerable, had it focused on Mya giving scummy perverts their comeuppance. Instead, there are meandering subplots about the Interpol pursuit of her, led by agent Bourdeau (Dourdan), and local cop Selma (Azzabi). The latter lets Mya go after capturing her, because her prisoner recites crime statistics at her, apparently boring the policewoman into hypnotic compliance or something. We hardly ever see Mya even lightly kick significant butt, and her talents evaporate entirely at points. One minute, she’s efficiently taking down security personnel in a resort (albeit to no real purpose). The next, she can’t beat a fat Moroccan tour-guide, who can barely waddle away. I’m not impressed.
There are few things worse than a film which clearly wants to make an earnest point (as evidenced by the quoting of statistics), yet is incapable of doing anything except repeatedly shooting itself in the foot. We’re given no reason to root for or care about the heroine, or anybody else in the picture for that matter. The action is largely feeble, though I did have to laugh at the Interpol agents chasing on foot after Mya’s motor-cycle, which then conveniently falls over. And if you want to see attractive Moroccan scenery, you’d be better off with a Tourist Board promo video. Definitely a candidate for worst movie of the year.
Dir: Zhor Fassi-Fihri
Star: Irma Lake, Michael Patrick Lane, Gary Dourdan, Soraya Azzabi